1969 Plymouth Road Runner - Street Teacher

Road WarriorsYou're at a stoplight and a 5.0 Mustang pulls up along side of you. That guy behind the wheel...maybe he's just a kid; maybe he didn't live through the musclecar era. Whatever, he probably doesn't know half what he thinks he knows about real horsepower. The kid sees you looking at his NOS sticker on the side window and blips his throttle a few times.

Now it's your turn.

What do you want to be driving?

2/5

You want to teach this kid something, don't you? Let him know what real street racing is all about and show him what the bow-tie and the blue-oval crowd have been trying to figure out for years. Let him realize it's not who looks the prettiest crossing the line, but in what order that line is crossed. Show him that there are certain performance modifications not sold in catalogs, and that all of the money in daddy's wallet won't buy what a few quality hours under the hood can teach.

Now what do you want to be driving? Is it something along the lines of what you see here?

Who wouldn't get a little nervous lining up next to this beefy Road Runner? The profile alone is enough to send shivers down the spine of most wannabe street warriors. Add to that the roar of a 440 and you've got rolling intimidation. And, unlike some show-stealers, when the light goes green, this sleek beast doesn't fall short of the hype.

3/5

Stan McGuire has been dishing out lessons to know-nothing street racers in his no-nonsense '69 Road Runner since July 2000. Although he bought the car in the spring of '96, it took Stan three years to complete the modifications, doing all the work himself. In 1999, Stan took the car for a test drive, and, after only 23 miles, another driver ran a red light and took off the front end of Stan's freshly built bruiser. After spending another year getting things back in order, Stan has certainly earned his stripes on the street. Now Stan tells us the Road Runner has over 900 miles on the clock and he drives it nearly every weekend.

4/5

The B-Body is powered by a 440+6 that's been bored .060-over with forged Sealed Power pistons. Combined with 906 ported and polished heads, the big-block delivers a whopping 12.5:1 squeeze. The 440 inhales through a set of Tri-power Holleys, while Hedman adjustable 2 1/8-inch Jet Hot Coated headers deliver the exhale. A Lunati cam featuring a .690 lift and 312-degree duration manages the timing duties through Harlan Sharp roller rockers and solid lifters. Power is then channeled to a Chrysler A833 Hemi four-speed transmission and selected via a Hurst/Mr. Gasket Vertical Gate shifter.

The Road Runner's ride and handling has seen significant upgrading thanks to a transplanted E-Body disc brake front suspension and a rear ladder bar/coil-over setup. This all comes together with the help of a Dana 60 rear, 5.38:1 Strange spool, Competition Engineering three-way adjustable front shocks, and Alden coil-over Double Eagle rear shocks. Rolling stock consists of 15x6 and 15x14 Stockton steel wheels front and back, respectively, and Coker P205/75R15 redlines up front with matching S445/50-15 redlined tires in back.

5/5

Stan got a little help in the looks category with an exterior base coat/clearcoat applied by Ace Body and Motor in Des Moines, Iowa. Stan, however, did install the 15-gallon Triangle Engineering fuel cell himself. And yes, that is a factory hood. Inside the cockpit, Stan did his own upholstery work, as well as fabricate the custom dash and ignition panel mounted in the passenger compartment.

Despite all the performance modifications, Stan tells us the Road Runner still cruises like a dream, and even in the dead of summer the engine stays fairly cool and guzzles a reasonable amount of fuel...unless he opens up the throttle. But when he does that, fuel consumption rates aren't an issue. To educate the driver in the next lane, Stan believes the lessons he teaches on the asphalt are worth it.